In private industry, Johns has held executive management positions with Electric Mobility Corporation, Gentiva Health Services, and Eli Lilly and Company. In government, he has served as White House speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush and a senior aide to New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean (R-NJ) and United States Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME). He worked for five years at the conservative Heritage Foundation, where he was a foreign policy analyst and an editor of the foundation's quarterly magazine, Policy Review.